Connecting the Dots: Tradition and Disruption in Lexicography

Abstract

This article botanizes in the history of lexicography trying to connect the dots and get a deeper understanding of what is happening to the discipline in the framework of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The objective is to suggest possible ways out of the present deadlock. History shows that a sudden change of the technological base, like the one we are now experiencing, suggests a total revolution of the discipline in all its major dimensions. In order to be successful, such a revolution requires a mental break with past traditions and habits. As a matter of example, the article focusses on a series of bilingual writing assistants developed by the Danish company Ordbogen A/S and the new challenges posed to lexicography by these and similar tools. It argues that these challenges cannot be solved by means of traditional user research which is retrospective as it unfolds in the framework of an old paradigm. As an alternative, and without excluding other types of user research, the article recommends disruptive thinking by means of brainstorm, immersion, and contemplation and provides some examples on how to proceed. Finally, it problematizes the incipient competition between human and artificial lexicographers and gives a brief account of a possible future redistribution of tasks.

A Lexicographical Perspective to Intentional and Incidental Learning: Approaching an Old Question from a New Angle

“…In any case, a better interpretation would be that they represent virgin land which the millennial discipline needs to cultivate if it wants to meet contemporary challenges. It requires a successful symbiosis of tradition and disruption; see Tarp (2019). The suggestions to improve current e-reading tools, writing assistants, and learning apps intend to remove some of the obstacles to incidental L2 learning in connection with the reception and production of written texts.…”

A window to the future: Proposal for a lexicography-assisted writing assistant

“…All this means that Write Assistant is fed by data imported from different sources and generated with different methods. According to Tarp (2019), who bases himself on the reflections by Rundell/Kilgarriff (2011), all these data can be considered lexicographical data irrespective of their origin. The current version of Write Assistant has two pop-up windows.…”

Galileo and the Enigma of -ic/-ical Adjectives: New Techniques to Meet Old Challenges

“…One of the new integrated products is the digital writing assistant. Various scholars have approached this kind of software from different angles during the past decade, among them Verlinde (2011), Paquot (2012), Wanner et al (2013), Granger/Paquot (2015), Tarp et al (2017), Lew et al (2018), Frankenberg-García et al (2019), Tarp (2019), and Frankenberg-García (2020. A number of writing assistants have already been launched in various languages.…”

“…The items presented in this window are imported from the lexicographical database where our proposal starts. However, a third window is also considered (see Tarp 2019). This window will give alerts to writers who may not be aware of a problem.…”